Baldwins Facing Pressure From Creditors on 2 Fronts

Pressure on developers James and Alfred Baldwin keeps mounting as the brothers, ousted last week from command of their Baldwin Co. home building firm, now find themselves fighting a two-front war against creditors in Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

The Baldwins, who control thousands of acres of prime Southern California residential land through their privately owned Village Development Co. and a number of partnerships not involved in the Baldwin Co.’s bankruptcy, are in default on more than $100 million in real estate loans on some of that property, records show.

Until recently they had managed to keep the lenders at bay.

But with the sale of Baldwin Co. assets looming as a court-appointed trustee takes over operation of the Newport Beach home building business, lenders on Baldwin brothers’ land in two major Southern California developments say they want their $33 million--or the land that secures the loans.

Citicorp Real Estate Inc., an arm of giant Citicorp Financial, says in papers filed in federal Bankruptcy Court in Santa Barbara last week that Village Development and Baldwin Co. jointly are in default on a $10.3-million loan on 525 lots in the upscale San Fernando Valley community of Calabasas.

While Baldwin Co. is in bankruptcy, Village is not.

And West Coast Land Fund, which took on a pile of Baldwin debt when the brothers’ San Diego County banker folded in 1993, says in a suit filed there last month that a partnership controlled by the brothers has engineered a bankruptcy in order to void the Baldwins’ personal guarantees on an overdue loan of almost $23 million.

That loan covers 1,034 acres of the Baldwins’ 22,000-acre Otay Ranch property in south San Diego County.

The suit names James Baldwin and his wife, Nancy, and Alfred Baldwin and his wife, Deeann, as defendants, along with three creditors who jointly filed to push the Baldwin controlled Tiger Development Two partnership into bankruptcy.

The Baldwin brothers, who still maintain offices at Baldwin Co.’s Newport Beach headquarters, according to a receptionist there, could not be reached for comment Monday.

Lawyers for the lenders involved in the two actions declined comment.